Half-Life
Half-Life: Gyah's Awakening is the fourth and final installment in the Early Sunsets Arc by BZPower and C.I.R.C.L.E. member Cap'n K. Prologue - ∞ Archivus was not typically a distracted individual. It was just... the stone. His eyes drifted from the cartographs on his desk to the almost round gem, covered in polygonal faces. The thing was gold and transparent, but when it caught the light reflected the whole spectrum of color like some strange diamond. It was... enticing. No, thought the Great Being, shielding his face and shaking his head to clear his mind. Using it as a paperweight was no good, no. In a daze of irritation at himself, Archivus lifted the stone in his hand to put it away. Even weighing it in his hand was something marvelous. It wasn’t quite heavy for its' size, no, but it surely was not light, either. It was almost as if its' air of ominousness made it even heavier than it should have been, yet was still simple enough to... “No,” Archivus muttered aloud. “I can’t let this get to me.” As rapidly as he could, without taking the time to think about it, he opened a desk drawer and placed the Gikk Maha within. “Back to my plans,” he muttered, suddenly noticing how frequently he’d been talking to himself. It was the fault of... “No, no, no!” he cursed. “Not that wretched thing again! Work! I must work!” Archivus set his quill down on the pad again and began to meticulously map the volume of morridox needed to fully fill the dome. He lifted a compass and lowered it to the page, but even so couldn’t remove the stone from his mind. He ground his teeth together and drove his fist down upon the table. No. There are more importan– “Archivus!” exclaimed the familiar voice of the midwife from the other room, and for some reason he knew... it was time. “Is it coming?” Archivus gasped, the color draining from his face and all thoughts of the stone being wiped clear from his head. “Yes!” cried Mirium in a strained voice. The Great Being stood, and without hesitation dropped all his work and darted into the other room. When he entered, the midwife stood at the foot of the bed, trying to calm Mirium, whose bulging belly was visible beneath the piles of blankets keeping her warm. Mirium’s face was knotted, her eyes cranked shut, apparently in pain. “Just breathe,” commanded the midwife. “It will all be over soon.” Mirium nodded, and then opened her eyes to look at Archivus. Archivus smiled proudly, but Mirium’s eyes dropped to Archivus’s hand, and astonishment struck her face. “Mirium, wha–?” “Why did you bring that stone?” Mirium cried. Then her eyes clenched shut in pain again, and she roared aloud. “Just hold on,” breathed the midwife. Archivus looked down into his hand, and the Gikk Maha seemed to mock him from below. “I... didn’t know!” “Take it out of the room!” “It’s okay, Mirium. Breathe. The baby is coming.” Harsh inhale. Harsh exhale. “I really had no ide–” “I don’t want that around the child! Return it...” Desperate cries. “Keep on pushing. Relax. It’s almost over.” “Take it out of the room!” “Mirium, this is absurd! It’s jus–” A roar in pain. “Just do what she says. Take the stone away.” A cry. Then silence. “Mirium. Archivus.” The midwife raised the infant up into her arms, and swiftly cut the cord that connected it to Mirium. “Meet your son.” “Mirium,” Archivus smiled, tears welling in his eyes. Again, the Gikk Maha was forgotten. He squeezed her hand, but there was no response. “Mirium.” He looked into her eyes, open wide and staring. Her lips moved feebly, but Archivus couldn’t understand. The room spun around him, and he needed to sit. After a moment, he was being roused by the midwife. He’d blacked out. “She’s... gone,” she said. Archivus stared blankly at nothing in particular, and before he knew it there was an infant wrapped in blankets in his arms. He was still dizzy. “She... she’s...” Archivus muttered, the room blurry behind teary eyes. “She whispered in my ear with her last breath,” said the midwife. In her voice was some form of panic... as if she’d been horrified. Archivus looked up, and saw the infant wrapped in blankets in the midwife’s arms. It was tiny and feeble, much smaller than any infant he had seen before. Gray and bony, and no larger than two of his own fists. Veins bulged from under the child’s skin. The sight terrified Archivus. This child wasn’t natural. “She wanted you to... to keep him safe... and to give him the stone.” The child’s eyes opened. Those yellow, awful eyes. The room swam before Archivus again. His wife lay dead across the room. The Gikk Maha rolled across the floor, much louder than any stone of its' weight should have rolled. It abruptly and violently came to a stop at the midwife’s feet. And the child laughed. Part I - the bird and the worm Rebirth - 1,048,576 For years, all I could remember was the black. It was all-encompassing, weaving through my vision and my hearing and all of my senses. Then, in a time interval so short compared to my never-ending sleep, I heard a ringing and at the same time small pinpricks of light began to explode into being all around me. The world beyond them wasn’t particularly bright by earthly standards, but in my never-ending shell of void, it was the brightest light ever. After a few seconds, the sense in my tongue returned, and I was able to taste the stale air, and feel its' humidity in my mouth and throat. I was left suspended there for a few seconds, without motion, and then the cold set in like a hundred frozen bolts of lightning. I barely had time to grasp the sensation of the cold wrapping all around me before I was shocked with the memories... first a light, and then darkness... then a hole opened in the sky, and a barren world cloaked in fog... then a dense jungle, and then a mountain and a pair of green eyes... then red, red everywhere... then pain... then dangling, dangling as if from some thread over perpetual blackness... then a crack, and wind. Everywhere. A heartbeat. And then a crash, and then the black. There are no memories after this. Wake, Gyah, echoed a voice in my own head, and while I knew that this was somehow my name, I also know that, in a sense, it truly wasn’t. The name almost felt borrowed. Yet for some reason, I was being beckoned to this world. And at this moment, I realized that I was not truly alive, but living some sort of unnatural half-life. I’m already dead. This was just my... encore. I was able to grasp some of the world around me, enough to realize that my teeth were chattering and I could see my breath, white like fog, before my face. I was strapped to a vertical bed, and I was in some kind of dark chamber. I tried to speak, but no words came out. I had the strangest sensation of knowing how to speak, remembering all the words and their places and their feel in my mouth, but I couldn’t seem to form them. It was almost as if I’d never spoken before. Then I realized... I might not have ever spoken before. With this sort of existence, I wasn’t sure what I’d experienced for myself and what I hadn’t. I tried to remember speaking, and I remembered two worlds... at first I remembered colors, and fog, and mystery, but my brain shunned those thoughts, and instead assaulted me with a stream of new memories and thoughts. A pair of words exploded forth from my frozen lips. “''Gikk Maha.” I coughed and sputtered then, and I was suddenly thrown into a vicious panic. The thoughts in my head weren’t real... they were alien... the mere thought of such things was worse than torture. In the thoughts, I was being torn from my own world. There was some malevolent spirit, emanating some cruel aura around her. Somehow, I knew the name attached to her, but I didn’t dare think of it, in the fear that she might spring from the shadows and destroy me. ''Gyah, she whispered in her rasp of a voice. It was all telepathic, like the form of speaking that I once knew, in another place. I was petrified, even in my own mind. For some reason, even though I’d seen so very little of this life, I feared leaving it greatly. I was afraid of what lay beyond. Worry not about that, said [[The Catalyst|''"The Catalyst"]]. ''I need you, just like you need me. You are my vehicle into this world. You must help me, and your wish to remain here will be granted. While I greatly feared the voice of this spirit, I knew that I could trust her, somehow. What can I do? I thought, stuttering in my mind because I couldn’t quite put words together in my head. It was a mix of this foreign, created language, and the all-encompassing language of thought I’ve always known. You must first wake up, she said. Learn who you are. Learn what you truly want. Then you must bring me to the center of the world. There lies the key to the happiness of both of us. I wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted. Did I want happiness? Or did I just want a place in this universe? The world was still confusing to me. I grew tired. The command from "The Catalyst" was for me to awaken, but I could not yet. I closed my eyes, and was pulled into a deep sleep. * * * “Gyah,” echoed the voice. “Gyah. Are you awake?” That name again. My name. I opened my eyes. Light. The colors and shapes flooded my mind, and I cried aloud. “Bright,” I forced my mouth to say. The word was mechanical, foreign. I was not used to speaking like this. Somebody spoke then. It was too fast for me to pick up entirely what the voice said but it commanded the lights be dimmed, and they were. “Gyah. Is that your name?” Yes. I spoke in my mind, but then realized that it was not enough. I pieced the sounds together in my mouth, on my teeth and tongue. “Yes.” It is my name. Right? “You’ve been asleep for a long, long time,” said one of the voices, and I was able to understand the full phrase. “How long? Cold,” I said. The voice chuckled. “Oh, you were frozen solid. We’ve been working for at least seventy years to restore your life without thawing you too quickly. Evidently, it worked.” “Where?” I commanded. “Where... did I... die?” “Oh, no,” the other voice sternly said. “You didn’t die. You’re very much alive. You’re on the Isle of Kopen Nui, in the western realm. You fell into a pit, you see, used for maintenance. There’s a place, deep below the ground, where temperatures can freeze liquids, objects, even Matoran, basically instantly. We work to return you to life. But you’re not from these parts, are you?” “Somewhere... else,” I said. The words were a struggle to arrange. I didn’t know where I was from, but had no words to express it. Just not here. Not the western realm of Kopen Nui. “Don’t strain yourself,” said the other voice. “Memories like this might take a while to recall if you’ve been asleep this long. I wouldn’t be surprised if some were lost... but you know that your name is Gyah, you muttered that in your sleep. And that you’re from somewhere else. That’s a start.” The words were overwhelming. I needed to focus heavily to process them all. “So... what do I do... now?” I said. “Stay in bed,” said one of the voices. “You can sit, if you like. Do you hunger?” “Hunger,” the word rolled around in my mouth. I knew the word, and that it was a feeling, and that I’d need to replenish myself. But I didn’t remember what it felt like, hunger or fullness. “You’ll know,” said the kinder of the two. “Tell me if you grow weak.” I opened my eyes a bit more, and was able to see some of the room. The beings who worked around me were just silhouettes, and the two who spoke weren’t fully visible. They both seemed to wear colored armor, which reminded me of somewhere different. But as much as I wanted to learn more about this world I now existed in, I wanted to shun the memories of that other place. They weren’t right here. I wasn’t supposed to remember them. “Is Kraahua here?” I said without explanation. I suddenly realized that I wanted to know. Kraahua... the Matoran with the black and green armor, and the fiery eyes. “I’m sorry,” said the one Matoran. “I don’t know who that is. I’m Suri.” Something told me to bob my head up and down, and then I realized what it was. Yes. I nodded. “Kraahua is a friend of mine. I just want to see him.” “You’ll need rest for now, Gyah. We can speak when you’ve gotten your bearings. Who knows how long you’ve been buried in that ice?” “Buried,” I breathed. “This is my home,” said Suri. “You can stay here for as long as you need to. Then maybe you can go out and look for Kraahua.” I nodded again. But they were right. What I needed was more rest. “I think I hunger now,” I said. Suri and the other Matoran chuckled a bit. “I’ll bring you something. Close your eyes until we return.” I closed my eyes, and was whisked, once again, into a blissfully dark slumber. Time of Winter - 524,288 An entry removed from a log found in Suri’s home: The people of this land are kind enough to me. I have found, through examination of my body’s memory... my memory... and the world around me, that I live among beings called Matoran. They tell me I am one of them, but a different kind. Unlike the Matoran who live here, on the Isle of Kopen Nui where I perished in my previous life, I do not have control over the elements. They tell me that I am affiliated with maybe Lightning, or Water, but so far I have no control over my powers and my memory tells me otherwise. Plants, I tell them, plant life is what I hold a connection to, but they tell me there are no Matoran of Plants. Are my memories faulty, or is this isle just ignorant of the world outside? I have become friends with a Ga-Matoran named Suri. “Friends” is a loosely fitting term, though, since it’s more of her obligation to care for me rather than anything else. I live in her hut, and she tells me that her occupation is that of a nurse, an occupation I have never heard of in the past, in my memory. I have learned much from Suri. She has taught me the workings of the island. The Emperor is a being called a Toa... a Toa of Stone, only to be addressed as Emperor Sorom, or Toa Sorom. Emperor Sorom is a kind ruler, she tells me, but he holds all the riches and wisdom of the land, and all belongs to him. Suri is glad that the Emperor is so kind, otherwise everyday life would be made hard. She tells me that on Kopen Nui they are happy, not like they were many years ago. According to Suri, the history of the island is always divided into two parts... the Time of Spring and the Time of Winter. Not long ago, it was the Time of Spring. Only a hundred years ago or so. At first I am astonished that such a long time is considered not long, since I can sit still for five minutes with nothing to occupy myself with and it feels like an eternity, but I soon learn and remember that these Matoran workers are almost immortals. The Time of Spring went on peacefully, under the reign of a young Toa Sorom, before that there are the rumors of a being called a Turaga, during a shining Time of Summer, until a deep fissure appeared on the surface of the earth where the island’s mountain once stood, after a mighty earthquake. A cold, bitter void laid inside the fissure... any that ventured down to the bottom were never seen again. This fissure is where I was found. This is the place that caused the Time of Winter. All the warmth seemed to vanish from Kopen Nui, and now all the island lives in its’ freezing climate. Although Suri is kind enough to me, as are the other Matoran, and I have heard whispers of my fate, I may become a nurse, as Suri is, or be moved to hunt for fish, I know I do not belong here. A fire burns in my memory, and I know that I must find the only links to my past. Words pass through my head which I can loosely associate to thoughts, faces, emotions. Kraahua. Manax Nui. Chronicler. Mountains, and seas. Iya-ja. Kore-ym. Gikk... What does this world hold for me? Why have I been so violently ripped from my sleep and plunged into a world that is not my own? All I can do is inhabit this island with Suri and the Matoran. Only time will tell what the future holds. * * * My dear father Archivus: If you are out there... If anybody is out there... You seemed to know that if you tried, you could peer into the otherworld, like an eye through a peephole, and unravel every mystery of the world beyond ours. Please know, if you are still alive, that you are wrong, and that all that awaits us beyond the sight of this limited world is chaos: unknowable, uncontrollable, and incomprehensible. With these eyes, these eyes that are mine and not yours, these crimson eyes that see color and depth and light, I have seen all this world has to offer. With this mind, my mind, not yours, complex and angular as the web of a spider, I have seen through my earthly limitations like eyes through a screen. Know, my father Archivus, that I am no longer your son. I was never your child. I am not your son, nor am I the son of Mirium, the one who waited by your side as you slowly grew absorbed in the mystery that is the world beyond... the world KRVA. While my mind can hear the name of the place, I struggle to write its’ name, to speak it, for it cannot be transmitted via clumsy tongues or vocal cords or voice receptors or whatever it is I use in this body of a Skrall. Know that this is the place from which I come, a place that merely considering the existence of can drive the minds of simple beings in endless circles with insanity as the only escape. I have seen into this world, I have seen the expanse of it all, and I have seen the horrors that lie within its’ core: white, at least, this is the closest I can describe it, perfect, one. If you are alive to read this letter, know that you should not look further. You should not try to break the cycle we are so violently involved in, the cycle of birth, death, and, perhaps, rebirth. Do not look for me. Do not look for the Gikk Maha. The Gikk Maha has a mind of its’ own, a primal mind, set on nothing but returning to its’ home. Its’ home, KRVA. So I humble myself before you, my father. Do not look through the peephole. Stay grounded in your world, and I will do my best to remain grounded in mine, without going mad in the process. As I float within this distant star, far, far away from Spherus Magna, I send this message back to you. The world beyond is not beautiful. It is not pure. It is not good. The world beyond is a pulsing, constantly bleeding heart, always wanting to heal, always watching everything. Its’ only cure, the Gikk Maha. The life of KRVA, and that of our world, lies in the hands of this feeble, tiny universe... and smaller yet, in the hands of you and I. If I were you, my father, my dear Archivus, I would suggest you lock yourself in your home without thinking, never to look into the light again. Unless, of course, you have died already. I can only hope that, if you are alive, you and all your friends cease your meddling immediately and I’ll do my best to stop mine. ::::::—A message from your loving child, transmitted via telepathy Characters *Archivus *''Gikk Maha'' *morridox (Mentioned Only) *[[The Midwife|''"The Midwife"]] *Mirium *Gyah *[[The Catalyst|"The Catalyst"'']] *Kraahua (Mentioned Only) *Suri *Sorom (Mentioned Only) *Iaja (Mentioned Only) *Korym (Mentioned Only) External Links *Half-Life: Gyah's Awakening Category:Epics Category:Cap'n K